Foster Care
Pew launched a major policy initiative in 2003 to help move children in foster care more quickly and appropriately to safe, permanent families and to help prevent their unnecessary placement in foster care in the first place.
After a year of intensive analysis, the national, nonpartisan Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care—composed of leading child welfare experts, policy makers, judicial leaders and others—recommended changing the way the federal government finances foster care as well as ways to improve court oversight of children in foster care.
Today, significant court reforms are underway nationwide and federal financing reform is urgently needed. With a new campaign, Kids Are Waiting: Fix Foster Care Now, Pew is working in partnership with state and national organizations to raise awareness about the issue and achieve, federal financing reform.
For more information, visit the Kids Are Waiting: Fix Foster Care Now Web site which offers state-by-state fact sheets.
Reports
Time for Reform: Aging Out and On Their Own
December 03, 2007 - This report, a collaboration of Pew’s Kids are Waiting initiative and the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities initiative, outlines how more teens are leaving foster care without permanent families.
Read: Summary
View: Full Report(Adobe PDF)
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Time for Reform: A Matter of Justice for American Indian and Alaskan Native Children
November 19, 2007 - American Indian and Alaskan Native children are overrepresented in the nation's foster care system at more than 1.6 times the expected level, according to this report by the National Indian Child Welfare Association and the national, nonpartisan Kids Are Waiting campaign, a project of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Yet, tribal governments are excluded from some of the largest sources of federal child welfare funding.
Read: Summary
View: Full Report(Adobe PDF)
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Report: Time for Reform: Too Many Birthdays in Foster Care
November 06, 2007 - This report provides an introduction to the foster care system and describes what life is like for the more than 500,000 children in foster care who are waiting for reforms that would help them return to their families or find new permanent families. Notes that, on average, children in foster care will spend at least two birthdays in the system. Each year, more than 24,000 teens “celebrate” their birthday by aging out of the foster care system without ever having been placed with a permanent family to call their own.
Read: Summary
View: Full Report(Adobe PDF)
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Report: Time for Reform: Fix the Foster Care Lookback
February 06, 2007 - Outlines the devastating impact an antiquated federal law is having on children in foster care—denying them eligibility and shifting costs to the states.
Read: Summary
View: Full Report(Adobe PDF)
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All Children Deserve a Permanent Home: Subsidized Guardianships as a Common Sense Solution for Children in Long-Term Relative Foster Care
December 01, 2006 - Generations United report which contains state-by-state data on the number of children living in foster care with relative caregivers and describes why subsidized guardianship can help children exit foster care for safe, permanent families.
Read: Summary
View: Full Report(Adobe PDF)
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